Proton therapy is a type of external beam radiation therapy that is characterized by the use of a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue. The chief advantage of proton therapy over other conventional therapies such as X-ray or neutron radiation therapies is the ability to administer treatment dosages three-dimensionally by specifying the depth (i.e., limiting the penetration) of applied radiation, thereby limiting the inadvertent exposure of non-target cells to the potentially harmful radiation. This enables proton therapy treatments to more precisely localize the radiation dosage relative to other types of external beam radiotherapy. During proton therapy treatment, a particle accelerator—such as a cyclotron—is used to generate a beam of protons from, for example, an internal ion source located in the center of the cyclotron. The protons in the beam are accelerated (via a generated electric field), and the beam of accelerated protons is subsequently “extracted” and magnetically directed through a series of interconnecting tubes (called the beamline), often through multiple chambers, rooms, or even floors of a building, before finally being applied through a proton therapy device to a target area/subject in a treatment room.
Clinical institutions that provide proton beam therapy services require systems supporting efficient treatment workflows. This need is common to both clinics with standalone treatment suites having a dedicated cyclotron, and also to facilities with multiple treatment rooms that must share the beam from one cyclotron. Proton treatments are typically delivered as a series of discrete treatment fields, wherein the patient is setup and positioned for delivery of the proton beam to each field in a sequence of beam deliveries, one field at a time. These setups can require manual manipulations in the treatment room, manual preparations at the treatment console, or both, with time consumed between each treatment field for manual processes. For either single-room or shared-beam facilities, extra time consumed by manual field setups can unnecessarily lengthen treatment sessions, and that can negatively affect patient comfort. By enabling treatment fields to be grouped as a set of fields for automated treatment, manual setups between each field and the time to perform them may be concomitantly reduced. For shared-beam facilities, field groupings can also serve as an input to beam request functionality, if needed, such that a request could be for a grouped set of fields to be treated to completion.
Generally speaking, cyclotrons generate a proton beam at a fixed energy for the duration of a proton therapy treatment. During typical proton radiation treatments however, irradiating a tumor often requires irradiating an entire volume (a tumor, for example) at different depths within a patient or treatment subject. These depths, which may be referred to in discrete units as layers, naturally correspond to different “optimal” energy levels. Since cyclotrons operate only at a fixed energy during a treatment session, irradiating different depths can become problematic. Conventional methods for irradiating a volume are performed by applying a treatment beam and begin by targeting the furthest depth within a patient or subject. To achieve precise targeting and for differing depths, attenuating components are placed in the path of the proton beam at or near the point of emission to reduce the energy of the proton beam.
These components may include collimators and jaws that block portions of the beam from reaching untargeted regions in the subject, or filters and degraders that reduce the speed of the particles (and thereby the beam energy). However, when a treatment plan for a patient or treatment subject has multiple beam fields with different iso-centers (treatment targets), a technician or radiation therapist may need to enter the treatment area to add, modify, or remove the attenuating components to achieve the desired energy and positioning. For multiple beam fields, this can cause significant delays and additional discomfort for the treatment subject.
Moreover, due to the complexity of the underlying machines, their operating and maintenance procedures, and the gravity of the corresponding medical procedures, highly trained and skilled operators are needed to perform the calculations and actions necessary to make adjustments to a proton therapy device to achieve the desired beam energy and position levels. Naturally, this can result in further inefficiency, delays or even potential hazards